guttata

That doesn't sound like broader-impacts stuff. Loaning textbooks? Course recommendations? Come on. If thats what you're basing your application on, you need some work. Assisted in recruitment to a lab, MAYBE, but really, the idea is how your activities and your research are helping.

You're trying to make yourself stand out. If you can sneak in a little humor, it's a good way to get yourself remembered. I think I have a story in mine about my advisor landing butt-first on a cactus and I think i remember a winner from last year saying they opened with a really corny joke on either their PS or PR essays.

Okay, essay reply time.... Talk to them. Everyone does their LORs differently. One professor asked for a phone interview because I've been away for a few months, another just asked for an updated CV to bring an older letter up to speed. I would think they would use just about anything at their disposal. Remember, its in their interest to get you funded too. Yes, of course. I'm usually amazed at people that can fit a full figure, let alone multiple into a proposal. I'm butting up against limits as it is.... You should cite as much as it takes to support your proposal. Mine last year had 10. A funded proposal last year had 12. My current one has 16. I've seen fewer than all of these examples. Same way you would in a peer-reviewed publication. Jones et al. In press or In review.Blah Blah Blah. J. of Crap. then a access number or DOI or whatever your field uses, since there won't be a reference issue. can you elaborate? This sounds a little iffy. I'm not sure how big of a deal to make out of "internet outreach," since, at least here, you make it sound like a large group kind of thing. Not necessarily. You're trying to sell yourself. Highlight the the good especially, and while you maybe shouldn't totally ignore the bad, don't focus on them and try to highlight them as areas for future growth. No. That won't win you any points. In fact, I think theres a couple places where they say you shouldn't make it about the money (even if it is, and we all know it is). Who knows. This whole thing is a crapshoot by the time it hits reviewers. The main point is that your project should be feasible within course of a PhD (or masters), so if you make it too grandiose or far-reaching I can see someone docking you. Since it's in an irrelevant field and they no longer take into account GRE scores, I doubt it would be incredibly helpful. If you have space, I also doubt it would hurt, so you could include it.

How good a proposal and how many people can you get to read it in two weeks? I think you've delayed yourself into a corner and would be better served writing about something you're familiar with. My proposal has been in revision for a month at this point, and edited by about 5 people. The nice thing about the GRF is that they're just looking to see that you can devise a logical project. You aren't tied to this proposal, so, you can write about the stuff you know and continue on to do your new project that you're actually interested in.

I started seriously considering the program too late this year, but I'm planning on trying next year. One of the stats that I had pointed out was that sometime in the last couple years, for 200 (?) or so awards there were something like 340 applicants - an absolutely insane funding rate. Definitely sounds like an interesting program.

My take, at least from the biological sciences point of view isn't so much that there is a true backup plan, but that you can still collect useful data from an experiment where your hypothesis ISN'T supported, i.e. negative data still tells you something novel. Not the same as writing out a backup plan so you won't see it explicitly stated in most cases, but very important and the hallmark of a well thought out and designed experiment.

IIRC https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/CoList.do

Bold is mine. They aren't going to take physicists and ask them to evaluate a biologists work. Now, as an ornithologist, I may get someone who studies mammals or something along those lines, but the people reviewing your application aren't going to be totally outside your field. Neither are they going to match you up specifically with someone who studies the same thing you do.

In a similar vein, I listed a presentation at a national conference that had been accepted but not presented yet. The presentation was in January, so I presented by the time reviewers saw my application. Doing the same thing this year for the same conference, different presentation.

There are multiple comments in past years from students with relatively low GPAs having success winning the award. The common thread in most cases seems to be that at SOME point there were strong semesters - these weren't students getting 2.8s across the board. There was a semester with an illness, or a family problem, or something, that caused the dip or that the student figured and recovered from. The key is to note that and what you've done to remedy the problem and show how you grew from it. Off the top of my head, one student I know had ~3.2 (an acceptable GPA but maybe a bit low for most applying for the GRF) but won the award. He spent a good deal of his application addressing his dyslexia and time spent bouncing between majors (declared 3 different majors in 3 different fields during 4 years, IIRC) as contributing factors. In short, it's not impossible, but you do need to spin things the right way.

So I guess I have that sorted out. Apparently Adobe Reader doesn't play nice in any way, shape, or form with Chrome, so I had to switch to Safari.

From the link that vertices provided (Emphasis mine): So, from this statement - where only panel is mentioned, never panels - ONLY your primary designation matters, unless the panel members think you screwed up. Honestly, I would think that if the reviewers have to send your app to another panel you're going to get dinged for that. Why would they fund someone who can't even tell where their research falls? On the flip side, I also think you would really have to get your primary field wrong to have them send it off.

Just to add, the one exception is for citations and conference proceedings/publications, which you CAN put in a 10pt font. That does give you a few more lines for the main essay. You can also play around with a few tricks. I became very adept at revising paragraphs that ended with 1-4 words on a new line, so that almost all of mine end more or less flush with the right side of the page. For one or two essays I also used 5 taps of the spacebar instead of the tab button. It adds up. The fine details of citations aren't always incredibly important. Instead of doing a full citation with spaces and indents such as: I use an extremely truncated version in a giant block like so: This citation style reduced 2 citations to less than the length of 1 full citation. Especially on papers with long titles, this adds up. Intext citations are a superscript number. Didn't get dinged for it at all last year and I've seen others do similar things.

Anyone having problems downloading the application package from grants.gov? I keep getting a nearly blank PDF file that says

Seems they're a little slow in getting all the announcements up on grants.gov. Still waiting for F2 to show up.

I think that changed when they updated to open the undergrad application. But yes, I think that can be taken as a good sign - at least the program still exists!

In every case I've seen when tuition outstrips the fellowship's coverage, the host school provides a waiver to cover the rest of your bill. It's still cheaper for them in the long run - the fellowship is paying 12k, your salary, plus they're getting their name plastered for free next to a prestigious award. The major difference between the NSF and EPA fellowship is that the EPA requires the research plan have a strong environmental focus, rather than the more open-ended research topics afforded by the NSF

Talk to professors. Look around. Programs will often offer a small stipend (being in the 12k-15k range) and a tuition waiver for being a TA during masters programs. My school does. Look for RAs as well. Sign up for a listserv (or scroll through the archives) like Ecolog-L (https://listserv.umd...s/ecolog-l.html) - a fair number of the posts are advertisements for students in funded positions. If you're into birds, same deal, try something like OrnJobs (http://www.osnabirds.org/jobs.aspx). I'm sure there are others, but that should get you started.

Having worked in a US registrar's office during undergrad, it's common for institutions abroad (although not in typically "Western" universities, ie France, Germany, UK, Canada, etc) to include a photo on transcripts. Its unheard of for a US school. And Hatem has no idea what he's talking about. Did ETS even take your picture when you took the GRE? They sure didn't take mine.

No reason to. Like comp said above, the only thing it really does at this point is add the possibility for discrimination, or it gets removed and not considered anyway. FWIW, I've never seen anyone with a picture in their CV. They'll get to see your face during the interview process anyway. TL;DR: No, don't put a photo in your CV

Possible OP is in a program that awards a master's on the way to a PhD, but is in a continuous program. An MA is typically a "non-thesis," or class-based, masters, as opposed to the thesis-based MS degree. My program is that way - I entered the PhD program with a BA, but at a certain point I can basically sign a paper and be awarded a non-thesis MA, if I so choose.

From what I've seen (and how I wrote my proposal last year), it's a guideline. It's probably best not to stray too far from the intended format, though, and breaking up certainly makes it easier for the people evaluating your work. One point to consider: Estimates for how long reviewers have with your application put it at about 20 minutes for all of your materials, and that's being generous. Bolded sections can only help make the important details stand out, and as each of these sections are likely the start of a new paragraph anyway, you're not really wasting any space by including a bolded word in addition to or in place of an indentation. My bolded sections (still under review at this point) are an unmarked introduction, study species, Aims(Purpose), Hypotheses, Study sites, Methods, and most importantly, Broader Impacts. In case no one's pounded it into yet, Broader Impacts is so, so critical. I've eschewed a plain Results (or Predictions, or what have you) section in favor of discussing the potential outcomes in terms of what certain results could mean for my field and related consequences like conservation, all under Broader Impacts. Keep looking at as many funded proposals as you can. You'll start to see common themes. Two good sites I've been using (though they might be slightly less helpful for your field) are http://www.alexhunterlang.com/nsf-fellowship and http://rachelcsmith.com/academics/nsf.htm

The problem is the DDIG isn't a fellowship, it's a research grant. You aren't paid anything out of a DDIG. You can accept both.

Are you sure about that? The GRF is a fellowship that covers tuition and stipend, and the DDIG covers research costs. They don't really overlap and there's nothing I can find in either solicitation that prohibits holding both simultaneously. Also, I personally know someone who used both in the same year. SO..... Edit to add: I don't think it's a bad idea at all. If you can get both at the same time, more power to you. I think this is probably a situation that doesn't come up a lot, as you have to advance to candidacy before you can apply for a DDIG. I doubt many people have advanced to candidacy before that 3rd semester of graduate school.

The basic idea is right, but I'm not comfortable with how you worded it. The idea of the GRFP is that they "Fund the researcher, not the research." You're trying to show that you can think critically and that your career will be a good scientific investment. So it's less "oh, they never follow up" and more you've impressed them and they are satisfied you'll produce.